How former SEC player of the year is helping Alabama prep for UConn's Donovan Clingan
Alabama basketball has a tall task in the Final Four this week against UConn. Literally.
The Crimson Tide will have to figure out how to play UConn center Donovan Clingan; he's both a problem to guard and a force defensively as a 7-foot-2, 280-pound sophomore.
Alabama doesn't have a player like him; most teams in college basketball don't. But the Crimson Tide has to prepare to face him nonetheless if it wants a shot at advancing to the national championship.
So, No. 4 seed Alabama has turned to a former SEC player of the year who's in the building: Erwin Dudley.
The 2002 SEC player of the year during his time playing for Alabama is a graduate assistant on the staff this season. In practice, as a 6-foot-8 player, he sometimes works on the scout team for the Crimson Tide, even though he's 42. This week, he's filling the role of Clingan, the best he can.
"Erwin was the SEC player of the year and scored pretty well in the post," Alabama coach Nate Oats said. "He's not as young as Clingan and he's not near as big so he can't give us the exact look. But he gives us a pretty good look on a lot of post players in practice. So it's nice we have Erwin who's a grad assistant who's able to go on scout team sometimes."
The Crimson Tide needs Dudley to give them as good of a look as possible. Clingan is the second-most efficient post player in the country behind Purdue's Zach Edey, per the analytics company Alabama uses.
This isn't the first time the Crimson Tide is facing a talented big this season. It played against Edey as well as players such as Tolu Smith, Ryan Kalkbrenner and Armando Bacot.
"But Clingan is a little different," Oats said. "He's not quite as big as Edey. But he's bigger than the rest of those guys, and he passes really well. If you don't double him, we've had issues guarding the post. If you double him, he passes well. You've got to pick your poison a little bit."
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Nick Kelly is the Alabama beat writer for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network, and he covers Alabama football and men's basketball. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him @_NickKelly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Former SEC player of year helping prep Alabama basketball for UConn
